The NOAA Chief Scientist’s Annual Report provides a corporate-level overview of NOAA’s Research and Development (R&D) activities, including a clear expression of the agency's research portfolio logic. As the nation’s environmental intelligence agency, with a legacy reaching back more than 200 years, NOAA supports a research enterprise that is a rich blend of disciplines, methods, and objectives. This document, a first of its kind, highlights NOAA’s progress towards meeting agency priorities in R&D, scientific integrity, and workforce development.

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GFDL Internships Support NOAA, Community Diversity Efforts

This summer, NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) hosted 10 interns, ranging from a high school senior to graduate students well on their way to their Ph.D. degrees. Each intern conducted research relevant to GFDL’s climate-science mission, and most presented their findings at GFDL and at their home institutions.

Since hitching unsolicited rides in boat ballast water in the late 1980s, invasive quagga mussels (Dreissena rostriformis bugensis), which are native to Ukraine, have caused massive changes to the ecology of the Great Lakes. These invasive mussels have also taken a toll on the Great Lakes recreational and commercial fisheries, which are valued at $4-7 million annually.

Dr. Chris Houser was studying rip current development on a beach in Florida when he noticed something curious: many beachgoers were spreading their beach blankets on the sand directly in front of an active rip current and swimming in the rip channel.

Never Missing an Opportunity, Ship of Opportunity That Is, to Collect...

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the words carbon dioxide? Is it the ocean? In this day and age, it should be. The ocean absorbs about one fourth of the extra carbon dioxide in the air that is released through human activity, according to a researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Clearing up a cloudy view of phytoplankton's role in the climate system

Phytoplankton - tiny plant-like organisms drifting through the great, vast ocean - are barely visible to the naked eye, and some are visible only through a microscope. Yet, when they are thriving, it is possible to see them from as far away as space. Their location is marked by swirling patterns of bright blues and greens that give the ocean a slick, marbled appearance, like oil on water.